


O brother mine

by gealach



Series: Tainted flesh, filthy soul [1]
Category: Dark Wolverine (Comics), Marvel (Comics), Wolverine (Comics)
Genre: Abusive Relationships, Dubious Consent, Implied abuse, M/M, Masochism, Sibling Incest, Skinning, discussions of parricide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-21
Updated: 2014-06-21
Packaged: 2018-02-05 15:11:24
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,132
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1822933
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gealach/pseuds/gealach
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Of the Mongrels, William Downing was the one who seemed aware of the Red Right Hand's plan. But was it their plan at all? Of what was William aware? Of what were the Mongrels aware, really?</p>
            </blockquote>





	O brother mine

**Author's Note:**

> I published this a few days ago on Tumblr; I've polished it and I've made a few corrections.  
> While this may very well be in continuity with "We shall burn" and touches many of its themes, it's not part of the series.

 

 

I.

He came to him one night, ambushed him and tried to kill him, but Bill managed to plant eight bullets in his body before he found himself pinned to the ground. A man with claws coming out of his hands; the claws were currently edging at his jugular.

“You'll die,” the stranger said, and yet he didn't kill him.

“Seems you're taking a whole lotta time,” Bill arched his eyebrows, and pointed his gun at the freak's head. He was still alive after all the iron he had taken, but a bullet to the head takes a man's life, no doubt about it. Even if this freak was very fast.

“You're _interesting_ ,” the mutie said, and then bent down and bit hard Bill's lips.

And that was how he met his brother.

 

II.

Daken spun a tale of a man running around the world doing whatever he wanted, killing and fucking every woman he found and planting spawns everywhere. And Daken was killing them all, in his own time.

“Shoulda be worried?” Bill said, and Daken arched an elegant eyebrow and said:

“You're _interesting_.”

Everything about him was elegant; he exuded power and sex, sprawled on his old ma's couch, long fingers cataloguing everything he touched and dismissing them. He was arrogant and cold and he had come to kill him.

He lay unconcerned. Bill had guns in his hands and had yet to use them. How was it that he was listening to him?

Their father was a menace and a monster, a ruthless assassin who had killed Daken's own mother; Daken was only returning the favor. Bill told this to his brother.

“You're interesting,” Daken replied, and he fucked Bill right there on the couch.

 

III.

Everything was violent and exciting. Daken would come and go, and they would fight and end up bloody on the pavement, iron in Daken's body, but he never actually stuck his claws in Bill, really; and sometimes he would fuck Bill, but sometimes he would let himself be fucked, snarling and biting. He would come undone and claw at him, and Bill didn't know why he did it, why everything seemed so simple and primeval when Daken was around, but he liked it, he liked to see his brother like this, he liked to feel him inside him, to be inside him.

Then they would fight again and Bill would take out his guns again and Daken would bite hard his shoulder and say, “Next time I'll kill you, brother mine.”

“Till next time, then, brother mine.”

It was fun, really. He never killed him.

 

IV.

“There are others,” Daken said, sprawled on his stomach, letting Bill knead his muscles and remove the bullets.

“Do you fuck them too?”

Daken laughed. “Why, you're jealous?”

He didn't know. He wasn't in control of his emotions when he was with his brother. He wasn't himself when he was with Daken. He knew that. His body did things that he wouldn't have done otherwise. Daken was his brother! He was fucking his brother! Had his old ma been alive, she would have died from that.

“I could be,” Bill said, and reached for a gun. Daken's arm jerked, his hand pinning Bill's wrist to the mattress effortlessly.

“Do not _presume_ , brother dearest.”

“I think you're full of shit.” Bill struggled. “Why don't you go and kill the old man instead of fucking around?”

“Why _don't_ you?” Daken rolled to his back and dragged Bill above him. “The fastest gun there is. _Gunhawk_.” He clicked his tongue. “I like it.”

“I could.” Sprawled under him like that, he looked so young, even if Bill knew he was probably older than him, but he hadn't changed a bit since the first time he had seen him. He looked like a whore, too, his long hair fanned in a halo. But he was deadly, his arms hiding knives.

“Don't you _dare_ ,” snarled Daken suddenly, his hands on Bill's arms in a vice-like grip that would have left bruises.

“I've got more balls than _you_ ,” Bill provoked, straddling him to make a point, and Daken bared his teeth and Bill felt himself go mad with rage.

“He's _mine._ He's my _prize_.”

“ _Your_ prize? He fucked my ma and left her alone!”

“He _killed_ my mother, you useless human.” Daken lifted himself and bit him on the chest, hard. Bill moaned. “He's _mine_.” Daken's tongue worried the edge of the wound. Bill struggled but was held in place. “Don't you dare _touch_ him.”

“Why don't you kill him?”

“It's not time yet.”

“Time? What are you waiting for?” Daken's eyes flickered for a second, wide and mad and feverish. “Jesus, you're _scared!_ ” Bill laughed, and took a closer look at Daken's face and laughed again. “Are you scared he'll take you down? Your brother is here for you, boy –”

And Daken snarled and reached behind Bill suddenly, thrusting a finger inside him, dry and fast. “Say that _again_.”

Riding Daken's finger, Bill bent low, feeling his face contorting in pain but knowing that faltering would have been a declaration of weakness. “Your brother's here for you, boy.”

Daken devoured his face and fucked him with his fingers, his other arm coming to encircle him, murmuring, feverish, “O brother, brother mine, brother mine –”

 

V.

The Mongrels, that was what Daken insisted to call them, and what a sorry band they were, a dwarf and a giant and two crazy bitches. But they were his blood. Daken said they were just another plan, another contingency plan. “Just train them for a while. That one does things with her blades,” he shivered, looking at the craziest of the lot, a black-haired lunatic that was licking her own blood from a knife. Bill saw the tip of Daken's tongue mimic the motion. He was jealous of his brother, he realised. He fucked his brother and was fucked by his brother and was jealous of his brother. _What am I doing?_

“Do you fuck her?”

Daken snorted. “Jealous again?”

_What are you doing to me? What are you doing to us?_

“Should I be? _She_ can't fuck you.”

“You'd be surprised.”

He didn't answer to that; he realised he didn't want to know.

“I can work with them. What do they know?”

“Oh, the basics. The infamous Wolverine is their father, wouldn't they like to kill him, and so on and so forth.” Daken ground his ass against him. “Wouldn't you like to fuck me right here? Give them a show?”

“Stop it.” Bill put his hands on Daken's hips, pushed him away. Daken growled low, the sound carrying surprise and delight, too. Why?

Why had he stopped him? He found himself always drawn to his brother like a magnet, why had he stopped him now?

“You'll never let them kill him.” Bill let his fingers trail over his brother's hips. He wanted to kiss the nape of his neck.

“They don't need to know that.” Daken turned towards him, a grin on his face. “Kiss me,” he ordered, and Bill obeyed.

 

VI.

Daken's arms, always so pristine, were ruined. Ugly scars run in his forearms, ruined his exquisitely carved beauty.

He had showed up and had hit him hard and Bill had understood that his brother had _never_ fought him for _real_ ; and then Daken had fucked him bloody on the pavement, rutting mercilessly and _sobbing,_ hiccuping an endless flow of Japanese; Bill hadn't understood the words, but they were desperate and ugly and furious and Bill had wanted to hold his brother and at the same time had feared for his life for the first time in years.

But Daken hadn't killed him. Daken had held him, afterwards, and had pressed kisses on his shoulderblades and spun a horrific, sordid tale, a tale of betrayal and revenge and other things, darker unspoken things edging in the background.

And now Bill was skinning his brother alive, taking the tattoo away. “Take it away,” his brother had begged him, and he had never seemed more vulnerable than that, lying on the bed like a dead man, his eyes empty. “Take that thing away.”

Bill had skinned the back already, red flesh glistening and then skin growing again, and now was skinning the arm, and he was staring at that horrible scar in the forearm. He was consumed with a burning desire to lick it, and he did, lips feeling the protruding flesh. “He did a shitty thing,” he murmured, “He did a real shitty thing.”

“ _Stop that_ ,” Daken snarled. “It's not even real. Stop that!”

“What's not real?”

“Fucking hate you. I _hate_ you!” Daken bit hard his lips, drawing blood, and shut his eyes. “Go on with that fucking knife, I don't have all day, go _on_ –” He sobbed, his other arm coming to cover his eyes. He laughed suddenly. “He took him from me.”

Bill cut carefully just below the elbow. “I see.” The jealousy bit at him, like always.

“No you _don't_. And that's fine, really.”

“He killed your lover, there's really not that much not to see.” It was just that he had thought _he_ was his brother's lover. But that was a stupid assumption to make.

Daken laughed again, long and shrill and almost hysterical, as Bill pulled away the skin. “So you've decided, then,” Bill said. “It's going to be us Mongrels.”

Daken removed his arm from his face, stared at him with heavy-lidded eyes. “Yes.”

Bill nodded, accepting it. It made sense; it was the most horrifying thing one could imagine, the right punishment for what the old man had done over the years, to all of them and countless others. He threw the skin on the ground. “You going to have another tattoo?”

“I'll change the design a bit.”

Bill trailed the knife over his brother's chest, a motion that seemed to provoke its heaving at a rhythm that was worrying. “You alright?” He tried to cup his brother's face, but Daken turned it away, shock and fear in his eyes.

“Get on with it.” Daken braced himself on the covers, fisted the sheets, knuckles white. He seemed crucified. On a whim, Bill went to sit on Daken's lap; the position would have made the skinning simpler.

“They're not ready,” he said as he cut carefully the skin below Daken's neck. His brother shivered.

“They don't have to be. The lesser they – ah – are, the better it is.” Had that been a moan?

“I'll be sending them to slaughter.” Bill continued to cut; he could feel Daken's erection pressing suddenly against him.

“You always knew the plan.”

“Aye; I did.” _We're your brothers. I thought you would relent. We were just_ one _among a_ thousand _plans._

But he knew this was the best plan; he could imagine his old man's face already, his horror when he would have realised what had he been made to do. It was beautiful. It was enough, really.

“It will kill him,” he chuckled darkly, and bent down to press a kiss on his brother's lips. He felt his smirk.

“Ah, no, brother mine. I don't want it to kill him. I want it to make him stay awake at night. I want that thought to torture him, night after night after night. I want him to suffer at the knowledge of what has been taken from him, at the awareness that he will never be able to avenge himself, that his revenge has been _taken_ from him. That there's nothing he can do, that he won't _ever_ feel peace again, that he'll always think about this and know he will never have a way of taking the pain away.” As he spoke, his face contorted in an ugly mask, his eyes full with emotion. It was rare to see something in his brother's eyes; their old man had destroyed him. Bill wanted to kill him for Daken.

But Daken wanted to deal the killing blow himself. And of them, he was the one who had been wronged the most.

“I like this plan,” he said.

“They'll die. Don't you care?” Daken seemed genuinely curious. He caught his hand and put it on his own chest, guided Bill's fingers to grasp the skin already hung and prevent it to reknit itself to his body.

“I only care for him to _suffer_. I don't care about those kids.”

“You're lying.”

“I care for him to suffer.” Wasn't that enough? Of course he cared about his brothers and sisters, didn't Daken? Had he not, he would have killed them already. He would have killed Bill himself long ago.

Daken nodded, accepting his unspoken words, and tilted his head back. “Pull.”

As Bill was about to, he added, in a whisper that Bill wasn't sure he had heard correctly, “ _Hard_.”

He did, as hard as he could, and Daken arched and moaned loudly, and Bill stopped, horrified, but Daken rolled his hips, “Yes yes yes _yes_ , like that, don't stop, flay it away, flay me, _flay_ me, harder, do it, fucking _do_ it, take him off me!” Frightened and suddenly turned on beyond belief, the air almost unbreathable from how painfully his cock was throbbing, Bill snatched the rest of the skin in one go, it coming away with a sickening sound as of wet paper slapping against something, the scent of blood filling his nostrils. Daken arched to an angle that was impossible, screaming and coming violently, “William William William, dearest dearest o brother mine –”

“Jesus Christ.” Sitting on his heels, Bill stared horrified at Daken laughing, half his chest skinned, come all over his stomach. Daken tilted his head towards him, his face almost paralysed in a grin that seemed to come out of a nightmare.

“Oh but you need to be taken care of, how rude of me,” Daken said, pupils blown, and was on his knees suddenly, as if nothing had happened at all, as if blood weren't trailing down his chest, skin regrowing already, and pushed Bill on his back. He grabbed Bill's aching cock and impaled himself dry on it, a scream coming out of his mouth, and rode him like that, as his skin regrew smooth and perfect and inkless.

Bill grasped Daken's hips, rolled up. “Are you alright?”

“I'm perfect. Perfect –” Daken touched his chest, “I'm going to change it, the bastard doesn't own me, it was a slave brand –”

He wasn't talking about their old man. “Who –”

“William.” Daken rode harder. “I'm going to bring them to the Red Right Hand tomorrow. If you want to say goodbye, do it today.”

Daken wouldn't have liked this. Not one bit. “I'm going with them.”

“What?” Daken kept riding him, his face tilted towards him. There was a furrow in his brows.

“I'm going –” Bill panted, quickened the pace, “– I'm going with our brothers and sisters.”

“Don't be ridicolous –”

“They're _idiots_. They need a field leader or they'll get themselves killed _before_ the right time.” Just a little bit more, he was almost coming –

“You'll _die_ ,” Daken snarled.

“Fine. I will contribute to his desperation.”

“I don't want him to kill you.”

“Oh _really_ –”

“He will be furious and he will rip you _apart_.”

“Whereas you will make me _like_ it?” Bill came panting, as Daken narrowed his eyes, as if he had said something strange. “Brother mine, let's not lie. Once they're dead, you will come and kill me.”

“That's not true.”

“Stop it.” Bill dug his fingers in Daken's still moving hips. “I'm not stupid.”

Daken stilled. “No. You're not.” He bent low. “Tell me, then.” His eyes were cold and blown.

“I'd be the last one. You were coming to kill us for a reason. You kept some of us alive but now we're _expired_. We'll serve your purpose. They'll die. And I – you said it's not real.”

“You thought it was?” Daken caressed his cheek. “Silly little William. I like you. I wanted to give you something nice.”

“I'm your brother.”

Daken hummed. “Ah, the _thrill_ of it. You think we should tell him? It would destroy him.”

How was it that the thought made him almost hard again? “I think killing us is a decent punishment already. And for you it wasn't real maybe, but for me it is.”

Daken's eyes flickered. “Stupid human. Are you listening? I wanted to _give_ you something nice. Or you thought it was all _you?_ ” He laughed, but it was strange and raw. “I _made_ you do it. All of it. Nothing was real. Nothing was ever real. What, are you _sacrificing_ yourself because you _love_ me?” He laughed again. “How stupid are you? I raped you.” He rolled slowly his hips.

Bill laughed. He couldn't help it; it was just so ridicolous, how Daken was saying those things with that face, thinking he was hurting him, just because he was so scared. “Maybe once, but you stopped. Or you think I didn't notice when I began reacting differently? You _liked_ it, no? That I even _rejected_ you sometimes.”

“You're delusional.”

“Maybe. But I want to die on my own terms. I want to make him _suffer._ I'll go with the others tomorrow.”

“Fine,” Daken snarled. “Have it your fucking way. I hope he chokes you with your entrails.” He lifted himself off him, climbed out of the bed. “Have fun making yourself killed.”

“What, you would have done it quickly and painlessly?" Bill rolled to his stomach to watch Daken as he reached the door, as he opened it with fury. “That's so sweet of you, brother mine.”

Daken slammed the door.

 

VII.

He watched as his father killed his brothers and sisters, watched as the Red Right Hand enjoyed it but watched their words around him, thinking him clueless. _They_ were clueless; thinking _they_ had trained the Mongrels, with their ninja bitch who thought she was so good; thinking this was _their_ game, while it had been Daken's all along, it had been the Mongrel's game, revenge for a father that had done unspeakable things.

When he faced his father he didn't speak, because nothing could have been said, everything had been already. He knew it was a battle he couldn't win, but he fired and fired and fired, wanting to do as much damage as possible to the bastard.

When the bastard boasted that nothing would stop him, he told him the truth.

“The plan was never to kill you. The plan was to make you suffer.”

Ah, his face. So innocent, thinking nothing would have happened, thinking the worst was gone, thinking he was about to have his revenge. How he ached to see his face when he would have realised they had made him kill his own children –

He hoped Daken was watching.

 

 


End file.
